The brand resurrection: Brotherhood

Eight years ago, Noel Clarke’s Adulthood stunned the UK film industry when it debuted in the UK with £1.20m from 157 cinemas, on its way to a total of £3.35m. This represented a big jump up from the success of Kidulthood from 2006, and set a high commercial bar for the British urban drama.

Actor, writer, director and producer Clarke went on to pursue other film genres with decidedly mixed commercial success, leaving the British urban genre for other film-makers. And with the 2013 collapse of Revolver Entertainment – the company that distributed the likes of Sket, Shank and Offender as well as Ben Drew’s debut Ill Manors and Adam Deacon’s spoof comedy Anuvahood – the genre was widely considered to have been exploited to death.

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So despite the return of Clarke to the genre, with his new film Brotherhood – the final part, he says, of his “hood” trilogy – this latest instalment hardly represented a commercial slam-dunk. Distributors were hardly running at Clarke waving chequebooks, and the film-maker received only a couple of viable bids for financing, eventually choosing Lionsgate.

Brotherhood began its preview run in the UK on bank holiday Monday last week, grossing £971,000 in its first four days. It then took a further £1.01m over the official weekend period, for a seven-day opening tally of £1.98m. Given a release in just 220 cinemas – less than half of the number for all its close competitors – that translates into a very robust site average, even if the film’s preview takings are excluded from the calculation. In fact, Brotherhood’s weekend site average of £4,581 is the highest of any film on release.

Nitpickers may point to the fact that Brotherhood’s three-day number is below Adulthood’s £1.20m debut, and of course ticket price inflation favours the new film. But it’s fair to say that few in the UK film industry thought Brotherhood would come close to the Adulthood result, and Lionsgate – and Clarke – will be amply delighted with this outcome.

The winner: Sausage Party

Released at the weekend into a wide 525 cinemas, animated comedy Sausage Party cruised to an easy victory, nabbing the top spot with a tasty £2.69m, including previews of £369,000. Rated 15 for “very strong language, strong sex references”, Sausage Party is definitely targeting an adult audience, and it’s hard to make relevant commercial comparisons with recent animated films.

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Screenplay credits include Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, whose Pineapple Express debuted in the UK in 2008 with £1.37m including £132,000 in previews, and whose This Is the End began in 2013 with 1.39m. More recently, The Night Before, which Goldberg co-wrote with fellow Sausage Party scribes Kyle Hunter and Ariel Shaffir (and one other writer), opened with a disappointing £273,000 from 279 cinemas. Conclusion: while audiences may have rather tired of watching Rogen and pals behaving like idiots, an R-rated orgy involving foodstuffs is definitely novel.

The real runner-up: Finding Dory

While Brotherhood’s previews boosted the film into second place, that position rightfully belongs to Finding Dory, with weekend takings of £1.50m. The Pixar sequel now stands at £38.87m, overtaking fellow Disney release Captain America: Civil War to become the biggest hit of the summer blockbuster season. Last summer’s Pixar hit, Inside Out, reached £39.2m, which Finding Dory will overtake imminently. Of the Pixar canon, Finding Dory is outgrossed only by Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, unless the 3D rerelease of Monsters, Inc (£2.45m) is added to the film’s original tally (£37.91m). Finding Dory is now ahead of Finding Nemo (£37.46m), even if the 3D rerelease (£1.23m) is added in.

The 2-4 September period was the last weekend of the summer holidays before most kids returned to school, with families taking their best chance to catch up on movies. Finding Dory saw box office drop by just 1% from the previous session, The BFG went up 6% and Swallows and Amazons went up 4%. The Secret Life of Pets impressively rose 27%, in its eleventh week of release, and Pete’s Dragon rose 16%. Expect all these titles to drop now the school holiday is over.

The comeback kid: Woody Allen

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Café Society, the latest from Woody Allen, represents a return to commercial form for the 80-year-old director, with a UK debut of £494,000 from 186 cinemas. A year ago, his Irrational Man began with just £197,000 from 166 venues, including £11,000 in previews. September 2014 saw Magic in the Moonlight arrive with £274,000 from 178 sites, including £4,000 in previews. Cafe Society opened well below Blue Jasmine, however: that one kicked off in September 2013 with £834,000 including £41,000 in previews.

Summer overview

Sausage Party pushes Finding Dory off top of UK box office

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While summer of 2016 has lacked the giant big hitters of a year ago, and European football championships put a kink in the release schedule in June, the UK’s distributors and exhibitors have reason for satisfaction. Yes, the season’s biggest hit, Finding Dory (£38.9m) is far behind not just summer 2015’s top title (Jurassic World, £64.5m), but also runner-ups Avengers: Age of Ultron (£48.3m) and Minions (£47.8m).

But this time there’s been a much broader spread of wealth. Summer 2015 ended with only two films in the £20-40m range (Inside Out and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation), whereas this time there are six: Finding Dory, Captain America: Civil War, The Secret Life of Pets, Suicide Squad, The BFG and Jason Bourne.

While box office for June was down on June 2015, in July and August it’s been robustly up, with Suicide Squad, Finding Dory and Jason Bourne all especially contributing to the late-summer surge. Total UK box-office for the 18-week period beginning with the arrival of Captain America: Civil War at the end of April is £456.0m, which compares with £436.0m for the same period in 2015, a rise of 4.6%. Given the general mood of despondency over this summer’s crop of blockbusters, that’s a surprising number.

While the top four titles – Finding Dory, Captain America: Civil War, The Secret Life of Pets and Suicide Squad – are exactly in line with their positions in the US summer 2016 line-up, fifth-placed The BFG is a notable local success. The UK gross of £28.7m marks it as a sizeable hit here, whereas the US gross of $55m has tarnished the film there as a costly flop.

The future

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Better-than-expected returns for Sausage Party and Brotherhood, as well as some very variable weather across the UK, helped the market overall to box office 18% up on the previous weekend, as well as a very healthy 92% up on the equivalent frame from 2015, when Straight Outta Compton topped the charts in its second week of play, and No Escape was the top new release. Cinema bookers are now hoping for the best with Wednesday’s release of Ben-Hur (already a significant box office disappointment in the US), and looking for some nice crossover success with the very well-reviewed Hell or High Water, starring Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges. Sony thriller Don’t Breathe is now emerging as the real commercial threat, following sensational business in the US ($55m after 10 days). Alternatives include the latest Laika animation Kubo and the Two Strings, Viggo Mortensen and George Mackay in US indie Captain Fantastic, Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan in World War II thriller Anthropoid, and raunchy French gay drama Theo and Hugo.